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Report - BBC Television Centre - March 2013

28DL Full Member

This is my first report, and was an official/unofficial tour. Due to this, I only had my camera phone with me, so some shots may be a bit lacking compared to my dSLR.

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Some history (ungracefully stolen from Wikipedia):

The BBC Television Centre at White City in West London is the headquarters of BBC Television. Officially opened on 29 June 1960, it is one of the most readily recognisable facilities of its type having appeared as the backdrop for many BBC programmes. It remains one of the largest such facilities in the world and is the second oldest operating television studio in the United Kingdom after Granada Studios, where the BBC's main commercial rival, Granada Television was based for many decades.

Most of the corporation's national TV and radio news output came from Television Centre with most of the recorded television output coming from the nearby Broadcast Centre at 201 Wood Lane care of Red Bee Media. Live television events from studios and routing of national and international sporting events still happen within Television Centre before being passed onto the Broadcast Centre for transmission.

As I'm sure some of you know, TVC is closing on the 31st of March, and thus most of the staff have moved to NBH (New Broadcasting House) already. I managed to pull in a favour for a tour, I made this one. Just.

This is a 13 acre site over many many floors including basements, armouries, studios, etc.

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Anyway, on with the pics:

[1] Main Entrance:

[2] "Fire up the Quattro!" - Ashes to Ashes star:

[3] Prop cart:

[4] Studio 1 (where the last show in TVC is to be filmed):

[5] View from one of the blocks:

[6] Scenery paint-shop:

[7] Never did get my badge

[8] Archive in the basement:

[9] News Studio (with robotic cameras still in situ):

[10] Blue Peter Pets and Presenters Mural:

[11] Blue Peter Garden:

[12] They cut the feed:

[13] The News offices:

[14] Editorial Suite:

[15] Obligatory chair pic:

[16] Nothing to hear, here (except 5Live, apparently):*

[17] By the book:*

[18] Helios (this was a working fountain with offices underneath, until it leaked so much they got fed up with umbrellas over their desks!):

[19] Studio 1 interior (Blue Peter was here)

[20] Is there a Dentist in the house?

[21] Red Nose Day's wrong Direction:*

[22] The big boys:*

[23] Prop warehouse paint shuttle, unceremoniously dumped:*

[24] Good thing I'm not quite that fat:*

[25] Awesome lift:*

[26] The IBC store:

[27] Remnants of the IRA bombings:

[28] One of the murals not 'alf-inched, yet:

[29] Exciting show, this one:

[30] The armoury (after WW2, it was cheaper to buy real guns for productions, than it was to buy fake ones), used as an IT storeroom in recent years: